quantus wrote:Isn't this why we started a thread titled 'Fucking up in Iran'? Iran's going to 'stabilize' Iraq, but in a way we don't like, so we'll go invade Iran to get them in line which will bring Iraq along too... In the process we'll vigorously defend any improvements to oil distribution that the two countries have made.

Joe, we we're planning on fucking up in Iran, but Iraq has been consuming our allotment of fuck-ups far faster than we anticipated. For the forseeable future, our Middle East fuck-ups will be primarily constrained to Iraq.

A European election expert who was involved in planning the Iraqi election recalled that Warrick “was always negative about the Shiites and their ties to the Iranians. He thought he could manipulate the election by playing with the political process"

a secret CIA-sponsored group of Iraqi paramilitaries, working with Army interrogators, had beaten [Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed] Mowhoush nearly senseless, using fists, a club and a rubber hose, according to classified documents.

The article only briefly mentions Iraqi paramilitary squads funded and directed by the CIA. Most of the article focuses on our own soldiers beating the living shit of Mowhoush for fun and profit.

short story: Plain-clothed Shiite Iraqi cops (who may also be insurgents), arrest British plain-clothed soldiers. Brits pull a commando raid to free soldiers. Iraqis denounce violation of sovernty and the ongoing occupation.
We definitely need to get the hell out of there.

Seymour Hersch again; this time he has sources inside the White House describing what an impervious sucker Bush is.

“The President is more determined than ever to stay the course,” the former defense official said. “He doesn’t feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage ‘People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.’

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 22 - Insurgents dressed as police commandos detonated powerful explosives this morning inside one of Shiite Islam's most sacred shrines, destroying most of the building, located in the volatile town of Samarra, and prompting thousands of Shiites to flood into streets across the country in protest.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 22 — A powerful explosion shattered the golden dome of one of Iraq's most revered Shiite shrines this morning, setting off a day of almost unparalleled sectarian fury in cities and towns across Iraq as protesting mobs took to the streets to chant for revenge and set fire to dozens of Sunni mosques.

also reassuring:

Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most senior Shiite cleric, released a statement in which he said, "If the government's security forces cannot provide the necessary protection, the believers will do it."

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 1 — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki lashed out at the American military on Thursday, denouncing what he characterized as habitual attacks by troops against Iraqi civilians.

Iraqis mourned their dead relatives outside a morgue in Baquba Thursday after gunmen ambushed a bus and killed at least five people.

As outrage over reports that American marines killed 24 Iraqis in the town of Haditha last year continued to shake the new government, the country's senior leaders said that they would demand that American officials turn over their investigative files on the killings and that the Iraqi government would conduct its own inquiry.

In his comments, Mr. Maliki said violence against civilians had become a "daily phenomenon" by many troops in the American-led coalition who "do not respect the Iraqi people."

"They crush them with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion," he said. "This is completely unacceptable." Attacks on civilians will play a role in future decisions on how long to ask American forces to remain in Iraq, the prime minister added.